Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“I couldn’t help voicing my frustration. ‘But there’s no further information about the location of the monastery they were looking for. Assuming it even was Sveti Georgi.’ Ranov had settled at the table with us and was looking at his thumbs; I wondered if I should hide my interest in Sveti Georgi from him, but how else were we going to ask Stoichev about it?

“‘No.’ Stoichev nodded. ‘Brother Kiril would certainly not have written the name of their destination in his letters, just as he did not write the name of Snagov with Eupraxius’s titles. If they had been caught, these monasteries might have suffered extra persecution, eventually, or at least might have been searched.’

“‘There is an interesting line in here.’ Helen had finished her notes. ‘Could you read that again-that the sign in the monastery they sought was a monster equal to a saint? What do you think this meant?’

“I looked quickly at Stoichev; this line had struck me, too. He sighed. ‘It might refer to a fresco or an icon that was in the monastery-in Sveti Georgi, if that was indeed their destination. It is difficult to imagine what such an image might have been. And even if we could find Sveti Georgi itself, there is little hope that an icon that was there in the fifteenth century would still be there, especially since the monastery was probably burned at least once. I do not know what this means. Perhaps it is even a theological reference that the abbot would have understood but that we cannot, or perhaps it referred to some secret agreement between them. We must keep it in our minds, however, since Brother Kiril names it as the sign that will tell them they have come to the right place.’

“I was still wrestling with my disappointment; I realized now that I had expected these letters in their faded binding to hold the final key to our search, or at least to shed some light on the maps I still hoped to use.

“‘There is a larger issue that is very strange.’ Stoichev ran a hand over his chin. ‘The letter from Istanbul says that the treasure they seek-perhaps a holy relic fromTsarigrad -is in a particular monastery in Bulgaria, and that is why they must go there. Please read me that passage again, Professor, if you will be so kind.’

“I had taken out the text of the Istanbul letter, to have beside me while we studied Brother Kiril’s other missives. ‘It says, ”… what we seek has been transported already out of the city and into a haven in the occupied lands of the Bulgarians.’

“‘That is the passage,’ Stoichev said. ‘The question is’-he tapped a long forefinger on the table in front of him-‘why would a holy relic, for example, have been smuggled out of Constantinople in 1477? The city had been Ottoman since 1453 and most of its relics were destroyed in the invasion. Why did the monastery of Panachrantos send a remaining relic into Bulgaria twenty-four years later, and why was that the particular relic these monks had gone to Constantinople to find?’

“‘Well,’ I reminded him, ‘we know from the letter that the Janissaries were looking for the same relic, so it had some value for the sultan also.’

“Stoichev considered. ‘True, but the Janissaries looked for it after it was taken safely out of the monastery.’

“‘It must have been a holy object with political power for the Ottomans, as well as a spiritual treasure for the monks of Snagov.’ Helen was frowning, tapping her cheek with her pen. ‘A book, perhaps?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, excited now. ‘What if it was a book that contained some information the Ottomans wanted and the monks needed?’ Ranov, across the table, suddenly gave me a hard look.

“Stoichev nodded slowly, but I remembered after a second that this meant disagreement. ‘Books of that period did not usually contain political information-they were religious texts, copied many times for use in the monasteries or for the Islamic religious schools and mosques, if they were Ottoman. It is not likely that the monks would make such a dangerous journey even for a copy of the holy gospels. And they would already have had such books at Snagov.’

“‘Just a minute.’ Helen’s eyes were wide with thought. ‘Wait. It must have been something connected with Snagov’s needs, or the Order of the Dragon, or maybe the wake for Vlad Dracula-remember the ”Chronicle“? The abbot wanted Dracula buried somewhere else.’

“‘True,’ Stoichev mused. ‘He wanted to send Dracula’s body toTsarigrad even at the risk of the lives of his monks.’

“‘Yes,’ I said. I think I was about to say something else, to meander down some other path of inquiry, but suddenly Helen turned to me and shook my arm.

“‘What?’ I said, but by then she had recovered herself.

“‘Nothing,’ she said softly, without looking at either me or Ranov. I wished to God he would get up and go outside to smoke, or get tired of the conversation, so that Helen could speak up freely. Stoichev glanced at her keenly, and after a moment he began to explain in a droning voice how medieval manuscripts were made and copied-sometimes by monks who were actually illiterate and encoded generations of small errors in them-and how their different handwritings were codified by modern scholars. I was puzzled about why he was going on at such length, although what he said held considerable interest for me. Fortunately, I stayed quiet during his disquisition, for after a while Ranov actually began to yawn. Finally, he stood up and made his way out of the library, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. As soon as he was gone Helen seized my arm again. Stoichev watched her intently.

“‘Paul,’ she said, and her face was so strange that I caught her around the shoulders, thinking she might faint. ‘His head! Don’t you see? Dracula went back to Constantinople to get his head!’

“Stoichev made a little choked sound, but too late. At that moment, glancing around, I saw Brother Rumen’s angular face around the edge of a bookshelf. He had come silently back into the room, and although his back was to us while he put something away, it was a listening back. After a moment, he went quietly out again, and we all sat silent. Helen and I glanced helplessly at each other and I got up to check the depths of the room. The man was gone, but it would probably be a matter of a short time before someone else-Ranov, for example-heard about Helen’s exclamation. And what use might Ranov make of that information?”

“Few moments in my years of research, writing, and thought have prompted for me such a sudden access of clarity as that moment when Helen spoke her guess aloud in the library at Rila. Vlad Dracula had returned to Constantinople for his head-or, rather, the abbot of Snagov had sent his body there to be reunited with it. Had Dracula requested this ahead of time, knowing the bounty placed on his famous head in his lifetime, knowing the sultan’s penchant for displaying the heads of his enemies to the populace? Or had the abbot taken this mission upon himself, not wanting the headless body of his possibly heretical-or dangerous-sponsor to remain at Snagov? Surely, a vampire without a head couldn’t pose much of a threat-the picture was almost comical-but the disturbances among his monks might have been enough to persuade the abbot to give Dracula a proper Christian burial elsewhere. Probably the abbot couldn’t have taken upon himself the destruction of his prince’s body. And who knew what promises the abbot had made Dracula ahead of time?

“A singular image drifted back to me: Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, where I’d strolled that recent sunny morning, and the gates where the Ottoman executioners had displayed the heads of the sultan’s enemies. Dracula’s head would have warranted one of the highest spikes, I thought-the Impaler finally impaled. How many people would have gone to see it, this proof of the sultan’s triumph? Helen had told me once that even the inhabitants of Istanbul had feared Dracula and worried that he might fight his way into their very city. No Turkish encampment would have to tremble again at his approach; the sultan had finally gotten control of that troublesome region and could set an Ottoman vassal on the Wallachian throne, as he’d wanted to years before. All that was left of the Impaler was a gruesome trophy, with its shriveled eyes and tangled, blood-caked hair and mustache.